I Didn't Say It ...

Patrick Stewart, actor, LGBTQ+ icon, hero who passed away last week, on his support for our community:

“There was never a moment when I made an intellectual choice that I would be a supporter of gay civil rights. It was always a natural and uncomplicated choice. Then later in life, as I got to know well-known [LGBTQ+] activists like Ian McKellen, I was only too happy to join campaigns, march and support in whatever way I could because it always seemed to me to be something that much too much fuss was being made about.”

Marching for, speaking out for, standing up for, equality should never be a choice.

It should just be, so thank you Sir Patrick for all that you’ve done for our community.

RIP

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Ian McKellen, actor, paying tribute to his friend, actor Patrick Stewart, who passed away last week at age 86:

“Before everything else, Patrick was defined by being born and bred in Yorkshire, the proud county in the north of England which he loved to the end. You could hear it in his accented voice and in the stern honesty with which he told you what he thought and felt. Yorkshiremen have no truck with half-truths or avoidance of big issues. He wore his heart on his sleeve, which made him a man to rely on, to admire and in my case, love. My first strong memory was … meeting him in the street in central London when he told me about an offer to take over a leading part in ‘Star Trek.' He took the risk and thank goodness for us all that he did for not just his devoted Trekkies but film and theatre audiences, who marveled at his using international celebrity to star in a string of cinema successes (‘X-Men’ of course) and in great classical plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, Arthur Miller, Peter Shaffer, Pinter and Beckett at Stratford-upon-Avon, in London’s West End and on Broadway. America was his adopted home, where he met his adored [wife] Sunny who has cared for him through sickness and health, through thick and thin."

Stewart lived a full life of good loves, good friends, good roles, good stories.

McKellen and Stewart made the best of friends.

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Abdul El-Sayed, Democrat Senator-elect from Michigan, billionaires and tax breaks:

“I remember an interaction with Jesse Watters about billionaires [and] he’s like, ‘Well, they work hard for the money.’ I’m like, ‘Do they?’ Once you have a billion dollars, you’re not working hard for anything. You billions make more billions. That’s the problem with the system. I would rather a system where we’re not helping a billionaire make a second billion, but instead [we are] helping a kid get a good education at a good school so maybe they can make their first million some day.”

Why not just have people pay their fair share of taxes; the billionaires won’t suddenly become poor, they’ll just have a fewer billion dollars until their money makes more money.

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Robert Reich, lawyer, and political commentator, on Leon Skum’s big Texas smack down:

“The richest man in the world spent more money that most people will see in a lifetime, only to lose a Senate race and a Governor’s race in Texas by double digits. This is a reminder that we must overturn Citizen’s United. But it’s also a reminder that organized people can still defeat organized money.”

It also shows how many people despise Leon Skum and his ilk and do whatever it takes to shut them down.

It also shows that We The People have the power.

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Danny Pintauro, out actor and film producer, on his decision to come out rather than be outed:

“For the last six months, I’ve been searching through storage for the original 1997 National Enquirer article about me coming out. And today, there it was. I was 21 years old, and the Enquirer had made it clear they were going to run a story about my sexuality whether I participated or not. So I made the decision to speak for myself. Seeing the actual article again almost 30 years later is surreal. And here’s something I had forgotten: all things considered, it’s actually pretty heartfelt. Yes, the headline is enormous and very 1997. But the story talks about the support I received from my family, Tony Danza and Judith Light, and even includes a message about courage and coming out from Chaz Bono. It’s wild to think how short the list of openly gay public figures still was in 1997, and how many people would come out publicly in the years that followed. That doesn’t change how complicated it was to have something so personal become national news before I was ready for it to happen on my own terms. But reading it now, I can also see a 21-year-old me trying to take control of a situation I hadn’t chosen and say, “If this story is going to be told, I want my voice in it.” And I’m kind of proud of him for that. And a little thank you to [Chaz Bono] too. Seeing those words of support sitting beside my story nearly 30 years later means more to me now than I probably understood at the time. Almost 30 years later, I finally have the actual piece of history back in my hands. Still gay. Still here. And very grateful that today, I get to decide how my story is told.”

Strong young man to take on that choice for himself at 21, and at a time when celebrities were not coming out.

And he’s still telling his story.

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